...but there was finally a breakthrough today during Sunday School. The teacher was going over Proverbs 25, and a word jumped out at me many times: neighbor. This is what has been missing in my understanding of how the world has been ordered. I had a concept of one individual's obligations to another individual, but I wasn't sure how to categorize it and systematize it with the other categories: market, state, family, church, and self.
[Sadly, this lack of certainty has often been reflected in my life, in which I have often been more comfortable interacting with others in which there is a clear sense of authority in the relationship, and minimized opportunities to interact with people where no authority-based duties were present. The few opportunities that I afforded myself left me ill-equipped in this area, because I usually associated with individuals as socially awkward as myself. This began to change in college, and accelerated after i first arrived here in Columbia. God-willing, I will continue to improve in this area.]
This word catalyzes my understanding of my duties and privileges as one individual among other individuals within the context of Scripture. It seems to me that it is the neighborly duties that fill in the gaps between the duties and privileges that are present within the other realms of authority. Indeed, it is the neighborly duties that hold everything else together. If one cannot trust the people one interacts with on a daily basis, including strangers, at the most basic level of decency, then governments, churches, markets, and families are at risk of dysfunctionality, if not corruption and dissolution.
So I'll be checking out these in the context they appear to understand this concept as well as I can. Let it be colored purple (Hi, Aunt Bekah!) when i get around to updating the color scheme of these pages to include this new discovery. God bless, neighbor.
